The invention relates to a system for the remote programming of a personal medical device, in particular an implantable medical device, such as a cardiac pacemaker, a defibrillator, or the like.
Cardiac pacemakers or defibrillators are sometimes used in combination with a central service center, wherein medical, physiological, or operational data obtained by the cardiac pacemaker or defibrillator is transmitted to the central service center to analyze the data and provide it to an attending physician via a corresponding user interface.
Some functions of such implants are controlled by software or firmware and are programmable. It often occurs that after initial programming, further programming or reprogramming is desirable shortly before, during, or after the implantation to be able to better adjust the implant to health states of a patient which have possibly changed in the meantime, or to increase the performance of the implant in another manner. Programming or reprogramming of this type is frequently performed by a physician with the aid of a programming device via a short-range, wireless data link through which the physician programs a selected implant in regard to the patient.
However, programming or reprogramming of the implant may also be performed remotely, for example, via the central service center. As an example, a data link may be produced for this purpose between the service center and an intermediate intermediate patient device located in proximity to a patient, with a bidirectional data link being generated between the implant and the intermediate patient device. The connection between the service center and intermediate patient device may be implemented as wirelessly or otherwise, for example, via the telephone network, the Internet, or similar data lines.
A problem exists in this case of ensuring that the selected implant and/or the intermediate patient device is not reprogrammed as a result of an erroneous data transmission, or by unauthorized reprogramming or misuse.
To solve this problem, encrypting and/or verifying programming instructions for the programming or reprogramming of an implant using a public-key encryption method, such as PGP, is provided according to U.S. Pat. No. 6,442,432.